Folks I was reading a little of the news and noticed something dramatic has been happening under our noses wothout much fanfare at all, the stealth takeover/closure of internet radio stations.
Heres how they are doing it.
Stage 1: The scam
Complain to congress that "perfect digital copies" of music is being played and can be copied and that the rights owners ( the RIAA's big 4 members who use about 15 different company names), should be compensated per play and per audience size.
As most of you would agree a 32k - 64k bitrate audio file is in no way a perfect digital copy, even the partially deaf can tell the difference in quality.
Stage 2: The sting
Form an entity that you can control and ask congress to grant this "front" or shell company the monopoly over collecting all artists royalties from internet radio operators.
Currently this shell company is called sound exchange and they claim the exclusive rights in the US to collect royalties even on behalf of those who want nothing to do with royalties and are not RIAA members (this would of course include your own offerings), and heres the fun twist if by chance your an artist who might want those royalties, sound exchage want a fat fee for their services before you get a nickle.
Stage 3: The truth
Ok having outlined the plan a above we need only join the threads together to see the full picture here, only those internet radio stations owned or operated by those who own the majority of their own recordings will be left in the market, anyone else will be penalised so heavily with royalty claims that they will be unable to operate, this seems strange indeed in the US as terrestrial radio stations there traditionally broadcast royalty free and have done so for 50 years now, something other countries radio station operators envy.
It seems that unless more folks can ask why it is that a single RIAA operated front company has been granted to exclusive licence to demand excessive royalties on a massive scale for very low quality music then its just a matter of time before we see all independent stations go belly up, so much for the claims of the RIAA luddites to protect creativity, try calling it by its true name, protecting your global monopoly.
